2024 FORT PECK

Huge thanks to Heath Headley, Fisheries Biologist for all work on Fort Peck and sending these articles to keep us all informed and thank you crew and all volunteers!

April 14th

The weather has been very cooperative for us in the Big Dry Arm area of Fort Peck Reservoir. Water temperatures have steadily increased to 50-52 degrees in some of the shallow areas where the trap nets are located. This is very encouraging for walleye spawning activity.

Numbers of walleye captured per net have increased as well with the warming water temperatures. We’re continuing to see some good numbers of male walleye (and some big ones up to 26 inches) along with some green and ripe female walleye. Thanks to the increased numbers of ripe female walleye collected from the trap nets, we’ve been able to hold two more egg-takes since the last update.

On Saturday we collected 12 million and today (Sunday) we collected another 12.3 million more eggs. These two egg-takes brought our total to approximately 24.3 million eggs so far. This is a really good start to the 2024 season. However, it looks like a cold front is headed our way starting Tuesday afternoon. Winds are forecasted to gust from 34-46 mph and nighttime temperatures will be dropping down into the upper 20’s. There’s a good chance this could hamper our collection efforts for several days.

Photo: Cole Fink with a very nice green female walleye

Photo: Gabe Uy with a walleye almost as big as him!

Photo: Fish culturist, Matt Baxter, stripping eggs from a ripe female walleye.

Photo: Walleye eggs in the process of water hardening in cradles.

April 12th

It’s official, the 2024 walleye trap netting and egg collection effort is underway on Fort Peck Reservoir! The ice has finally receded and we’ve managed to get our gear in the water. Over the last several days, we’ve been able to get our spawning barges, holding pens, and some trap nets in the water to begin our operation. Today was actually our second day of checking nets and we’ve managed to collect a few fish along the way.

Water temperatures have been relatively cool throughout our trap netting locations due some windy conditions that have been frothing up the water. Water surface temperatures were around 47 degrees today in the upper Big Dry Arm area. We’ve seen some early indications that walleye spawning activity is starting to occur. We’ve captured some decent numbers of male walleye, which seems to be a typically pattern early in the spawning phase, along with some green (holding eggs) and occasional ripe (releasing eggs) female.

Due to a few ripe female walleye captured in trap nets and few that ripened in our holding pens, it looks like we could hold our first egg-take of the season in the next day or two. The weather forecast looks promising over the next several days, so let’s hope this helps with the walleye spawning activity.

Photo:  Jaxson Kemp with a big female walleye captured from one of the trap nets.